Weekly Daf #293

The Hill and the Hole

When Haman offered Achashveirosh
10,000 talents of silver for permission to carry out his genocidal
plot against the Jews, the king responded: "The silver is
given to you as well as the people, to do with them as you see
fit." (Megillat Esther 3:11). He then gave Haman
the royal ring as power for his "final solution."

Our Sages compare this scene
to a dialogue between a man who had a hill in his field which
obstructed his cultivation of it and another who had a similar
problem with a deep hole in his field. Each of them longed for
what was in the other's field as a solution to his own problem.
One day the fellow with the hole approached the hill owner with
an offer to buy his hill from him so that he could fill his hole.
The hill owner graciously declined the offer of money and gladly
allowed him to removed the hill for the benefit of both of them.

Achashveirosh and Haman both
hated the Jews, but for opposite reasons. To the haughty king,
this wise and noble people represented a hill that threatened
his own stature. To Haman they were lowly, contemptible creatures
to look down upon as one would a hole in the ground.

In another sense, these two
symbols represent two classical approaches to overcoming anti-Semitism
throughout the ages. The Jews who believe they are hated because
they are different have discovered that assimilation only earns
them the disrespect of those they attempt to imitate, who subsequently
look down on them even more than before - the hole! Other efforts
to win the affection of non-Jews by reminding them how much they
owe the Jews who have enriched their commerce, science and arts,
only produce an irritating hill of debts which our enemies, like
Achashveirosh, are glad to get rid of.

The only real solution is
that indicated in the very next lines of gemara commenting
on the king's transfer of the ring: "The transfer of this
ring achieved more than all of the 48 prophets and seven prophetesses
who did not succeed in causing Jews to repent, while this transfer
of power did."

(Megillah 14a)

The Greatness of Torah Study

The study of Torah, says Rabbi
Yosef, is greater than even the saving of lives. As proof he
calls attention to two biblical passages which describe Mordechai's
return from exile to Eretz Yisrael. In the first one (Ezra
2:2), Mordechai is mentioned after four others who came together
with Zerubavel after the Persian ruler Koresh granted permission
to return. In the second one (Nechemiah 7:7) he is mentioned
after five others who accompanied Zerubavel 24 years later when
he returned a second time after the building of the second Beit
Hamikdash.

Why was Mordechai thus demoted,
asks Rabbi Yosef. The answer is that during this interval there
occurred the Purim miracle and Mordechai became Persian prime
minister. Even though this enabled him to save Jewish lives,
he was lowered in his prestige among the sages because he could
no longer devote himself to Torah study with the same intensity.

This ruling of Rabbi Yosef
is posed by Maharshal as a challenge to a halacha in Shulchan
Aruch, Yoreh Deah 251:14. The ruling there is that if a community
has collected money for the purpose of supporting Torah study,
it may divert those funds to pay a tax levied upon it by a despotic
ruler. Although the general rule is that property or money set
aside for one sacred purpose cannot be diverted to another sacred
purpose unless it is of a more exalted nature, it is sanctioned
in this case because there is a danger to the lives of poor people
in the community whose inability to pay the tax will bring violent
action from the ruler against them.

But if the study of Torah
is greater than the saving of lives, asks Maharsha, how can funds
collected for this more exalted purpose be diverted to a less
important cause?

An interesting answer is
supplied by Turei Zahav (ibid. 6):

There is no doubt that if
one is studying Torah and a situation of lifesaving arises he
is obligated to interrupt his study in order to save the life,
as "nothing stands in the way of lifesaving," say our
Sages. So clearly, Torah study must be interrupted for this purpose,
and funds collected for Torah study must be diverted to save the
lives of the potential victims of the tax collector.

When Rabbi Yosef compares
Torah study and lifesaving, he is merely measuring the merit
of one who was able to study Torah without the interruption
of emergencies to the merit of one whose study was compromised
by the circumstances which compelled him, like Mordechai, to divert
his time and energy to saving lives.

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